The following professionals comprise the advisory board for the International Association of
Black Travel Writers:
Daiyyah A. Edwards Abdullah is an associate professor of English at Montgomery College in
Rockville, Maryland, and a former lecturer in the Department of English at Howard University,
Washington, DC. Her doctoral dissertation examines critical issues in the travel writings of Colleen
McElroy and Caryl Phillips. Her research interests are the travel narratives of Black Atlantic writers
and modern British writers. Daiyyah Abdullah is the advisor of an online student travel journal,
"Journeys". She additionally is compiling an anthology that addresses the body politics of covering
for traveling American Muslim women. To learn more about Abdullah's student travel journal,
"Journeys," visit www.coas.howard.edu/journey.
Helen C. Broadus is the president of Venue International Professionals, Inc. (VIP), a full-service
travel and tourism consulting firm that specializes on the continent of Africa. She has visited twenty-
five African countries over the past fifteen years. A contributing writer for such publications and
media sources as the "Africa Travellers Journal", "Africa Travel Magazine", "ATA Website" and
"Black Meetings & Tourism" magazine, she is also a featured panelist of radio, cable television and
other mediums on various topics about the travel and tourism opportunities in Africa. Broadus is a
member of the International Board of Directors of the Africa Travel Association (ATA), where she has
served as the executive secretary for the past seven years. Committed to the promotion of travel
and tourism opportunities on the continent of Africa, she has continued contributing to the
professional growth and development of the ATA organization at all levels over the past 15 years.
For more information about her company Venue International Professionals, Inc., visit
www.venuetravel.com.
Dolores Bundy is founder/CEO of DB Networks Corporation, where she is a political consultant,
media/entertainment manager and freelance writer/editor. She successfully directed the marketing
and field operations for presidential, congressional, gubernatorial and mayoral campaigns
throughout Georgia. A professional participant in African politics, Bundy coordinated numerous
international observer organizations and election officials for Africa. She also held comprehensive
seminars in civic education and election monitoring and was responsible producing political
training manuals used in more than twenty-eight African countries. As a media/ entertainment
manager, she has worked with great musical artists, including Bob Marley. As a freelance
writer/editor, Bundy has written several novels about her Third World experiences and has
continued writing about her travels to such places as Africa, Malaysia and the Caribbean. For more
information, visit www.dbnetworkscorp.com.
John Watusi Branch is a lecturer, poet, author, singer, businessman and activist. A resource
person and lecturer on Kwanzaa, he is one of the first people to publish a book on the story of
Kwanza. He is the editor and publisher of Christianity and African Traditional Beliefs and the author
of Journey To The Motherland, which chronicles his 22 years of traveling, organizing and leading
vacation, cultural, educational and festival tours all over Africa. Branch is the co-founder and
executive director of The Center for Culture, The Afrikan Poetry Theatre, Inc., a multi-disciplined
cultural center founded in 1976. He is president of African Travel, Assistance and Business
Association (ATABA) and a member of ATA Africa Travelers Association (ATA), an organization that
has sponsored conferences on travel to various African cities for the past 33 years. He is founder
and president of Watusi Enterprise Unlimited, a cultural consultancy, import/export, promotion and
tourism company and a partner in Touba Exotic Leathers, a leather manufacturing company based in
Senegal and New York. Branch has been recently involved in the naming of a street and the
unveiling of a statue honoring Harriet Tubman in West Africa. For more information, visit
www.afrikanpoetrytheatre.com
Linda Cousins-Newton is a historical researcher, educator, storyteller, and promoter of The
Bahamas' ancestral Junkanoo Festival, a performance she coordinated at the UN and at the Super
Bowl XXXV venue. In the l980s she published "The African-American Traveler" newsletter and a
travel guide, CARIBBEAN BOUND!--Culture Roots, Places, and People. Both publications encourage
support of Black diaspora businesses and cultural and historical sites. She conceived and
coordinated (in 2000), along with John Watusi Branch and other New York culturalists, the
posthumous enstoolment of Nana Harriet Ross Tubman as a Queen Mother in Ghana, culminating
with a street naming and statue mounting in Nana Tubman's honor in Aburi, Ghana, in August of
2005 (hosted and officiated by Nana Osei Boakye Yiadom II, Ghana's first female Chief). Her work as
a travel journalist is featured in Elaine Lee's travel book Go Girl: The Black Woman's Book of Travel
and Adventure (Eighth Mountain Press, 1997). For more information, visit
www.ancestraltravels.com.
Solomon Herbert is the publisher/ editor-in-chief of "Black Meetings & Tourism," an award-
winning international magazine that he founded in 1994. Herbert and his wife Gloria established the
magazine to target and highlight African American meetings, and incentive, organizational and
leisure travel markets. Through his magazine and works in the global community, he has continued
to be a viable force in the travel industry. A member of Meeting Professionals International (MPI),
the travel industry's global authority and largest association for the meeting profession, Herbert has
been recognized as one of the most influential African-Americans in the tourism industry. For more
information, visit www.blackmeetingsandtourism.com.
Elliott Hester is an award-winning travel writer, syndicated travel columnist, and bestselling
author of Plane Insanity (St. Martin’s Press, 2002) and Adventures of a Continental Drifter (St. Martin’
s Press, 2005). His humorous narratives are included in the Traveler's Tales anthologies Hyenas
Laughed at Me and Now I Know Why and Not So Funny When it Happened. Elliott is the editor of the
"Pelican Guide to the Bahamas" (the world's first "Internet interactive" travel guide). He also writes
"Continental Drifter," a syndicated column published monthly in more than 50 U.S. newspapers
including the "Chicago Tribune", "Miami Herald" and "Denver Post." In 2002, he sold his car,
abandoned his apartment, and took off on what was supposed to be a one-year trip around the
world. The trip never ended. Unattached and blissfully homeless, he continues to travel from one
foreign destination to the next, writing his column and toting his belongings in a rolling duffel bag.
For more information, visit www.elliotthester.com.
Elaine Lee is the author/editor of Go Girl: The Black Woman's Book of Travel and Adventure
(Eighth Mountain Press, 1997). She is a freelance travel writer whose work has appeared in
numerous national magazines and webzines. She has also appeared on numerous local and
national radio and TV shows. In 1999 she and a travel writing colleague, developed the San
Francisco /Bay Area's first travel radio show. She has continued being a regular guest on the show
which airs monthly on the Bay Area/Northern California station KPFA-FM. Additionally, Lee is
practicing attorney in the Bay Area. She has twice traveled solo around the world and has visited
over 46 countries. A foremost authority on black women as travelers, she has continued to be an
avid traveler and adventurer. For more information visit, www.ugogurl.com.
J. Alisa Sanders is a writer, singer, self-proclaimed modern nomad and world citizen. She is
founder of Mandala Brazil, a business and cultural service network set up to build bridges between
United States and Brazil. She made her first trip to Brazil in 1993, the last stop on a post college trip
that took her from Mt. McKinley, Alaska, to the Caribbean Isles and the continent of South America.
Alisa made her way to Salvador, Bahia, by bus from the mouth of the Amazon and once there
realized that she had found home. Twelve years later she resides in both New York and Brazil,
writing stories about her adventures, singing Brazilian music and, through her company Mandala
Brazil, facilitating contacts between her native country (USA) and her adopted one (Brazil). For more
information, visit www.mandalabrazil.com.
David J. Saunders is the CEO of Venue International Professionals, Inc. (VIP), a full-service travel
and tourism consulting firm that specializes on the continent of Africa. He has visited twenty-one
African countries over the past seven years. He is a member of the International Board of Directors
of the Africa Travel Association (ATA) where he serves on several Standing Committees. The
recipient of the ATA Founder’s Award in 2005 for his substantial contributions to the professional
growth and development of the ATA organization at all levels, Saunders is a model of commitment
and service to the promotion of travel and tourism opportunities to the continent of Africa. A
contributing writer for many publications and media sources including the "Africa Travellers
Journal", "Africa Travel Magazine", "ATA Website", and "Black Meetings & Tourism" magazine, he
is also a featured panelist of radio, cable television and other mediums on various topics of the
travel and tourism industry as well as trade and investment related opportunities in Africa. For more
information about his company Venue International Professionals, Inc., visit www.venuetravel.com.
Kalin Thomas is the founder and president of See the World Productions, a company that
specializes in print and broadcast travel and lifestyle stories with an emphasis on multiculturalism.
Her travels have taken her to six continents, including Antarctica. Before starting her own company,
Thomas worked as a CNN producer and correspondent, where she won numerous awards for the
travel show "CNN Travel Now." Thomas is a member of the National Association of Black
Journalists, North American Travel Journalists Association and Travel Professionals of Color. She
is also a Senior Southeast Correspondent for Soul of America, the leading travel website for African
Americans. For more information, visit www.seetheworldproductions.com.
Monique Y. Wells is co-owner of Discover Paris!– Personalized Itineraries for Independent
Travelers. Discover Paris! specializes in customized travel planning, offering self-guided
Afrocentric itineraries, African-American history walking tours, a comprehensive Black Paris bus
tour, and African-American hosted culinary activities for those wanting an in-depth travel
experience in the City of Light. Wells is the author of the award-winning cookbook Food for the Soul
– A Texas Expatriate Nurtures Her Culinary Roots in Paris (Elton-Wolf Publishing, 2001) and the
creator of the walks published in the book that she co-authored Paris Reflections – Walks through
African-American Paris (McDonald & Woodward Publishing, 2002). She is the editor of the culture
and lifestyle section of the "Bonjour Paris" website, an online magazine about Paris and France and
writes articles on many aspects of life in Paris for the Discover Paris! Newsletter and other
publications. A veterinary pathologist; Wells owns a consulting firm in pre-clinical safety
assessment of drugs, chemicals and cosmetics. For more information, visit
www.discoverparis.net.
Black Travel Writers:
Daiyyah A. Edwards Abdullah is an associate professor of English at Montgomery College in
Rockville, Maryland, and a former lecturer in the Department of English at Howard University,
Washington, DC. Her doctoral dissertation examines critical issues in the travel writings of Colleen
McElroy and Caryl Phillips. Her research interests are the travel narratives of Black Atlantic writers
and modern British writers. Daiyyah Abdullah is the advisor of an online student travel journal,
"Journeys". She additionally is compiling an anthology that addresses the body politics of covering
for traveling American Muslim women. To learn more about Abdullah's student travel journal,
"Journeys," visit www.coas.howard.edu/journey.
Helen C. Broadus is the president of Venue International Professionals, Inc. (VIP), a full-service
travel and tourism consulting firm that specializes on the continent of Africa. She has visited twenty-
five African countries over the past fifteen years. A contributing writer for such publications and
media sources as the "Africa Travellers Journal", "Africa Travel Magazine", "ATA Website" and
"Black Meetings & Tourism" magazine, she is also a featured panelist of radio, cable television and
other mediums on various topics about the travel and tourism opportunities in Africa. Broadus is a
member of the International Board of Directors of the Africa Travel Association (ATA), where she has
served as the executive secretary for the past seven years. Committed to the promotion of travel
and tourism opportunities on the continent of Africa, she has continued contributing to the
professional growth and development of the ATA organization at all levels over the past 15 years.
For more information about her company Venue International Professionals, Inc., visit
www.venuetravel.com.
Dolores Bundy is founder/CEO of DB Networks Corporation, where she is a political consultant,
media/entertainment manager and freelance writer/editor. She successfully directed the marketing
and field operations for presidential, congressional, gubernatorial and mayoral campaigns
throughout Georgia. A professional participant in African politics, Bundy coordinated numerous
international observer organizations and election officials for Africa. She also held comprehensive
seminars in civic education and election monitoring and was responsible producing political
training manuals used in more than twenty-eight African countries. As a media/ entertainment
manager, she has worked with great musical artists, including Bob Marley. As a freelance
writer/editor, Bundy has written several novels about her Third World experiences and has
continued writing about her travels to such places as Africa, Malaysia and the Caribbean. For more
information, visit www.dbnetworkscorp.com.
John Watusi Branch is a lecturer, poet, author, singer, businessman and activist. A resource
person and lecturer on Kwanzaa, he is one of the first people to publish a book on the story of
Kwanza. He is the editor and publisher of Christianity and African Traditional Beliefs and the author
of Journey To The Motherland, which chronicles his 22 years of traveling, organizing and leading
vacation, cultural, educational and festival tours all over Africa. Branch is the co-founder and
executive director of The Center for Culture, The Afrikan Poetry Theatre, Inc., a multi-disciplined
cultural center founded in 1976. He is president of African Travel, Assistance and Business
Association (ATABA) and a member of ATA Africa Travelers Association (ATA), an organization that
has sponsored conferences on travel to various African cities for the past 33 years. He is founder
and president of Watusi Enterprise Unlimited, a cultural consultancy, import/export, promotion and
tourism company and a partner in Touba Exotic Leathers, a leather manufacturing company based in
Senegal and New York. Branch has been recently involved in the naming of a street and the
unveiling of a statue honoring Harriet Tubman in West Africa. For more information, visit
www.afrikanpoetrytheatre.com
Linda Cousins-Newton is a historical researcher, educator, storyteller, and promoter of The
Bahamas' ancestral Junkanoo Festival, a performance she coordinated at the UN and at the Super
Bowl XXXV venue. In the l980s she published "The African-American Traveler" newsletter and a
travel guide, CARIBBEAN BOUND!--Culture Roots, Places, and People. Both publications encourage
support of Black diaspora businesses and cultural and historical sites. She conceived and
coordinated (in 2000), along with John Watusi Branch and other New York culturalists, the
posthumous enstoolment of Nana Harriet Ross Tubman as a Queen Mother in Ghana, culminating
with a street naming and statue mounting in Nana Tubman's honor in Aburi, Ghana, in August of
2005 (hosted and officiated by Nana Osei Boakye Yiadom II, Ghana's first female Chief). Her work as
a travel journalist is featured in Elaine Lee's travel book Go Girl: The Black Woman's Book of Travel
and Adventure (Eighth Mountain Press, 1997). For more information, visit
www.ancestraltravels.com.
Solomon Herbert is the publisher/ editor-in-chief of "Black Meetings & Tourism," an award-
winning international magazine that he founded in 1994. Herbert and his wife Gloria established the
magazine to target and highlight African American meetings, and incentive, organizational and
leisure travel markets. Through his magazine and works in the global community, he has continued
to be a viable force in the travel industry. A member of Meeting Professionals International (MPI),
the travel industry's global authority and largest association for the meeting profession, Herbert has
been recognized as one of the most influential African-Americans in the tourism industry. For more
information, visit www.blackmeetingsandtourism.com.
Elliott Hester is an award-winning travel writer, syndicated travel columnist, and bestselling
author of Plane Insanity (St. Martin’s Press, 2002) and Adventures of a Continental Drifter (St. Martin’
s Press, 2005). His humorous narratives are included in the Traveler's Tales anthologies Hyenas
Laughed at Me and Now I Know Why and Not So Funny When it Happened. Elliott is the editor of the
"Pelican Guide to the Bahamas" (the world's first "Internet interactive" travel guide). He also writes
"Continental Drifter," a syndicated column published monthly in more than 50 U.S. newspapers
including the "Chicago Tribune", "Miami Herald" and "Denver Post." In 2002, he sold his car,
abandoned his apartment, and took off on what was supposed to be a one-year trip around the
world. The trip never ended. Unattached and blissfully homeless, he continues to travel from one
foreign destination to the next, writing his column and toting his belongings in a rolling duffel bag.
For more information, visit www.elliotthester.com.
Elaine Lee is the author/editor of Go Girl: The Black Woman's Book of Travel and Adventure
(Eighth Mountain Press, 1997). She is a freelance travel writer whose work has appeared in
numerous national magazines and webzines. She has also appeared on numerous local and
national radio and TV shows. In 1999 she and a travel writing colleague, developed the San
Francisco /Bay Area's first travel radio show. She has continued being a regular guest on the show
which airs monthly on the Bay Area/Northern California station KPFA-FM. Additionally, Lee is
practicing attorney in the Bay Area. She has twice traveled solo around the world and has visited
over 46 countries. A foremost authority on black women as travelers, she has continued to be an
avid traveler and adventurer. For more information visit, www.ugogurl.com.
J. Alisa Sanders is a writer, singer, self-proclaimed modern nomad and world citizen. She is
founder of Mandala Brazil, a business and cultural service network set up to build bridges between
United States and Brazil. She made her first trip to Brazil in 1993, the last stop on a post college trip
that took her from Mt. McKinley, Alaska, to the Caribbean Isles and the continent of South America.
Alisa made her way to Salvador, Bahia, by bus from the mouth of the Amazon and once there
realized that she had found home. Twelve years later she resides in both New York and Brazil,
writing stories about her adventures, singing Brazilian music and, through her company Mandala
Brazil, facilitating contacts between her native country (USA) and her adopted one (Brazil). For more
information, visit www.mandalabrazil.com.
David J. Saunders is the CEO of Venue International Professionals, Inc. (VIP), a full-service travel
and tourism consulting firm that specializes on the continent of Africa. He has visited twenty-one
African countries over the past seven years. He is a member of the International Board of Directors
of the Africa Travel Association (ATA) where he serves on several Standing Committees. The
recipient of the ATA Founder’s Award in 2005 for his substantial contributions to the professional
growth and development of the ATA organization at all levels, Saunders is a model of commitment
and service to the promotion of travel and tourism opportunities to the continent of Africa. A
contributing writer for many publications and media sources including the "Africa Travellers
Journal", "Africa Travel Magazine", "ATA Website", and "Black Meetings & Tourism" magazine, he
is also a featured panelist of radio, cable television and other mediums on various topics of the
travel and tourism industry as well as trade and investment related opportunities in Africa. For more
information about his company Venue International Professionals, Inc., visit www.venuetravel.com.
Kalin Thomas is the founder and president of See the World Productions, a company that
specializes in print and broadcast travel and lifestyle stories with an emphasis on multiculturalism.
Her travels have taken her to six continents, including Antarctica. Before starting her own company,
Thomas worked as a CNN producer and correspondent, where she won numerous awards for the
travel show "CNN Travel Now." Thomas is a member of the National Association of Black
Journalists, North American Travel Journalists Association and Travel Professionals of Color. She
is also a Senior Southeast Correspondent for Soul of America, the leading travel website for African
Americans. For more information, visit www.seetheworldproductions.com.
Monique Y. Wells is co-owner of Discover Paris!– Personalized Itineraries for Independent
Travelers. Discover Paris! specializes in customized travel planning, offering self-guided
Afrocentric itineraries, African-American history walking tours, a comprehensive Black Paris bus
tour, and African-American hosted culinary activities for those wanting an in-depth travel
experience in the City of Light. Wells is the author of the award-winning cookbook Food for the Soul
– A Texas Expatriate Nurtures Her Culinary Roots in Paris (Elton-Wolf Publishing, 2001) and the
creator of the walks published in the book that she co-authored Paris Reflections – Walks through
African-American Paris (McDonald & Woodward Publishing, 2002). She is the editor of the culture
and lifestyle section of the "Bonjour Paris" website, an online magazine about Paris and France and
writes articles on many aspects of life in Paris for the Discover Paris! Newsletter and other
publications. A veterinary pathologist; Wells owns a consulting firm in pre-clinical safety
assessment of drugs, chemicals and cosmetics. For more information, visit
www.discoverparis.net.
IABTW Advisory Board
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